@ChrisF yup it's a country-based ban, But is this really necessary on the Stack Overflow Survey?
– Ali AliJan 23 '19 at 21:49

3

@ChrisF Would not it be better to use another server that does not block Stack Overflow users?
– Ali AliJan 23 '19 at 21:49

I will use a proxy :) But I hoped that this ban would not come from the beginning on stackoverflow survey. Thank you @ChrisF
– Ali AliJan 23 '19 at 21:53

5

I'm not an employee so I can't comment on why the survey appears to be region locked. It must be something to do with the 3rd party software they're using.
– ChrisF♦Jan 23 '19 at 22:44

A frame in the screenshot would be nice.
– Peter MortensenJan 24 '19 at 17:28

5

@AliAli Just saw in the answer below that Qualtrics, our third-party survey provider, does block Iran based on US sanctions between the two countries. We apologize for the inconvenience, and are glad you found a workaround.
– Anita TaylorJan 24 '19 at 17:37

6

Yup, I have completed the survey, here from Syria, thank you very much.
– Ali AliJan 24 '19 at 17:46

@pushkin I don't know where you live but anonymity and privacy are weird terms where I live... yes, even worse than the US Big Brother. You learn to live without them. SE is not law enforcement so I have no problems with that :P
– devconceptJan 25 '19 at 20:00

12

A bit ironic when you can't answer "How welcome do you feel on Stack Overflow?" because you're blocked from accessing the survey that asks this.
– Andras DeakJan 25 '19 at 22:34

1 Answer
1

You warrant that you will not use the Services or Software in connection with any person, including yourself, that is (1) located in a country or region that is subject to comprehensive U.S. economic sanctions (including Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Syria, and the Crimea region of Ukraine); or (2) a designated, denied, or otherwise restricted party, as specified under the laws and regulations identified above.

Given the location specified in your profile, I think this is evidence enough that Qualtrics has geo-blocked you.

I guess you can blame a combination of the US Government, extreme contemporary paranoia, and Stack Overflow's choice of third-party service (worldwide access should have been one of the selection criteria, and should have been checked!).

(Emphasis on "guess"; I do not work for Stack Overflow, Qualtrics or the US government and am therefore merely speculating.) Now confirmed by employee; apparently a deeper review will be taken next time before the choice to use this particular solution again is settled on. Please do apply due diligence, folks!

Thank you, Lightness, I appreciate your answer. I hope that in the next year stackoverflow will use another server :)
– Ali AliJan 24 '19 at 11:55

26

Same here from Cuba. A little advice, use a VPN. This is clearly an honest mistake. I just hope that Stack Overflow don't make the same mistake next year.
– devconceptJan 24 '19 at 17:03

7

It does show though that people aren't putting thought into internationalisation (even if it's just a token read-through of the very brief T&Cs of the selected third-party service), which is a shame for an organisation such as this. Worldwide access, you would think, should be one of the items on the checklist of "what does this service provide that we need?". It's a mentality thing. I do agree of course that ultimately it comes under the category of "accidental oversight".
– Lightness Races in OrbitJan 24 '19 at 17:05

35

This is the 2nd year that Stack Overflow used Qualtrics as our survey provider. Unfortunately, Qualtrics Terms of Service blocks countries where there are US sanctions. Based on our experience using them last year, we didn’t realize this was going to be an issue. We chose Qualtrics because our survey requires more specialized functionality than we can build in-house. Although the survey itself is large in scale, the team of employees who work on it is quite small, so we need to automate where we can. Next year, we will keep this issue in mind and determine if Qualtrics is the right fit.
– Anita TaylorJan 24 '19 at 19:44

FWIW building a survey is kind of trivial unless there's some magic going on behind the scenes that you can't build into your server environment for some reason
– Lightness Races in OrbitJan 24 '19 at 23:28

21

Any company that suggests turning off ad blocking in this day and age of malware serving ads should be avoided in my opinion.
– user1118321Jan 25 '19 at 3:28